In Kanpur, police draw boundary line

To justify these drastic measures, top police officers point to the history of cricket-related communal skirmishes in Kanpur. The last India-Pakistan clash here was a drawn Test in December 1979, which was followed by violent clashes between the two communities.

‘‘Many of the areas here such as Chamanganj, Bekanganj and Deputy ka Padoa have a high concentration of mixed population. A heavy force will be posted there,’’ SP (North Kanpur) Shiv Sagar Singh told The Indian Express.

The extraordinary precautions, says Kanpur SSP P C Meena, is also due to the fact that April 15 happens to be a Friday, the day of Jumma for Muslims, and falls within the Hindu Navratra period. The Shiv Sena’s local unit has been refused permission to conduct a one-hour procession outside Green Park on April 13.

Says Meena: ‘‘Any person who wants to see the match should either come to the stadium or watch it inside his house. No one should assemble on the streets or in markets to watch the match on TV sets as this leads to a huge assembly of persons of both communities and heightened tension that can lead to fights. Police will act against such offenders.’’

A request by the managements of some movie theatres to screen the match has also been shot down and police will control ‘‘inflammatory’’ sloganeering inside the stadium.

SP Shiv Sagar Singh says the firecracker ban, too, is aimed at preventing communal tension: ‘‘If you want to celebrate, you should express your happiness inside your house and not publicly, which may incite communal tension. We will advertise this in all newspapers so that there is no confusion.”

Green Park has been in the news for all the wrong reasons even before the Pak team arrived in India. On January 31, the two-member PCB team of Zakir Khan, its general manager (operations) and Sohail Khan, a police officer, had expressed concern about the spectators’ facilities in Kanpur.